Once is never enough

This weekend I had to go back to Iisalmi again. Not had to in someone was making me, but in the sense that last weekend was not enough for me to really get to spend a fair amount of time reuniting with everyone I left behind indefinately 3,5 years ago. Maybe the view of the city to the left can help explain my attachment to the place. I took this from my backyard.

I had a lot more time this weekend. I took the evening train Thursday, and came back on the morning train today.

Friday we went to Sonkajärvi, home of the World Championship Wife Carrying Competition (page in English). I wasn't there to carry my wife though. We went snowmobiling. Temperatures were well below 0: -17F, -27C and less. Needless to say, it wasn't the longest of snow treks, but it was my first time driving a snowmobile, and it was pretty amazing. So what if my nose was pale white by the time we were done and my toes and thumbs were still stinging 7 hours later?

Friday night me and the host bros decided to hit up the town after sauna and a few beers at a friend's, and that we did. A little too much in my case, as I found out the next morning. But that night, nonetheless, I had a great time back at Kojootti. This time I ran into a different crowd of people from high school. As chance would have it one of my better friends from when I was here was there that night. I had heard that he is living in Helsinki these days, and planned on hitting him up later this week, so seeing him there was pleasantly random.

Saturday I woke up a bit "disenfranchised," but I was a trooper anyway and headed off to see family #3, family K. Here I had 2 younger host sisters. When I was here last time the youngest was only 9 or 10, and when I walked in the door and she came to give me a hug I didn't even recognize her! During those years, it's amazing how much just a few years can mean. I spoke with them for a while and had coffee (which made me feel immensely better) and decided I would come to spend the weekend with them in 3 weeks. After returning from their place and having a midday meal, we had a bit of time before the evening was slated to begin. Me and Tepu (my younger host sister from family P) took this time to play a game of scrabble. By some miraculous stroke of fortune I won!! I took a picture of the board, my first Finnish scrabble experience. We played again the next day and I was thoroughly whompped, but I enjoyed my bubble before it burst. (2 notes- Jessica- see that word far on the left going vertically? Silmät korvat ja vasta taputa..... ;) -if you're playing scrabble in english and you have 3 a's and a j you're pretty much done for. Luckily there are Finnish words such as "ajaa" to drive. If you have another "j" you can make one of my favorite Finnish words, "ajaja" (see left in the photo, pronounced ah-ya-ya), driver.

After scrabble we met up with some other peeps from high school at a cottage in a nearby village. more sauna and drinks, as well as lots of finnish talking since I am in Finland after all. It's easy to forget when I'm around young people who have grown up with English tv and globalization and who can't wait to try their english. The first few weeks I was happy to let them speak english as I was too scared to try out my finnish except with my closest friends, but lately it's been getting progressively more fennocentric (eli, much more finnish talking). Saturday was a pretty normal night. I was sitting with my friend Annina waiting on some other people to arrive when I saw this guy dancing and had to try to sneak a video. It isn't very clear, but you get snap shots. He basically just put his arms at a 90 degree angle and moved his hips about 2 inches left, then right. It was great. Sadly, it's pretty average dancing for a drunken Finn. If you listen really closely you'll get to hear those ever developing Finnish skills o'mine as I tell annina "I can't see anything." It turned out clearer on screen than on the camera though.

Sunday I did a little more visiting, went to my host bro's hockey game, and generally relaxed. That evening was once again a sauna night, this time me and my host dad were the only ones to go. He likes his sauna a little hotter than I like mine generally (200F), but I still held my own and was in longer. It's not a competition, but I still like pretending I'm more Finn because I can outlast many in the sauna.

Today it was back to reality, and things are going to get even more real as I have a presentation Wednesday about the Finnish parliament. I haven't started.... Wish me luck!!